


Yue's Story

by cocinelle473



Series: Inscribed on my Heart [2]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Other, Yue dies and it's bittersweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-18 21:33:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29740176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cocinelle473/pseuds/cocinelle473
Summary: Yue has known her soulmate from the moment she was born. She heard the words when she was a baby and she understands the promise they carry.
Relationships: Tui & Yue (Avatar)
Series: Inscribed on my Heart [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2184747
Comments: 2
Kudos: 29





	Yue's Story

**Author's Note:**

> This is a part of a series, but you don't need to read the other ones to understand. 
> 
> All you need to know is that the most important words that your soulmate tells you are written over your heart in their handwriting.

Her mother held a silent barely breathing child in her arms, and took a final breath of her own. Her father sobbed and pleaded for them both to live. The entire village stood vigil, praying to Tui and La, begging them to give the daughter of their nation life.

When Yue was born, she didn’t open her eyes. Her dark lashes rested on her cheeks and the small bit of dark hair on her head did little to keep it warm. 

In an act of desperation, the kind only parents know, she was submerged in the spirit pool.

Yue was a baby. She couldn’t read, couldn’t understand her soulmate words. When the cold water covered her face, her eyes opened. She felt the weight of the words on her chest. She heard the voice of Tui in her mind.

_I will give you life._

Yue was a baby, but she understood. When her hair turned white and her mouth opened, sobbing, mourning, she understood. She cried because she was a baby and couldn’t tell her parents what it meant.

\-----

Whenever Yue dreamed, she wasn’t in her bed. She dreamed that she was hung in the sky like the stars. She dreamed that she kept vigil at night over all the people of the world. She dreamed of her people and people she didn’t yet know. She held hands with Tui and let her salty tears fall to La who kept them safe for when they were needed.

\-----

_I will give you life._

The words that taunted Yue as she grew. They promised a destiny she couldn’t understand and had received before she could even cry.

_I will give you life._

The words that comforted Yue as she got older. The words that her father would press a palm to when he thought his daughter was asleep.

_I will give you life._

Yue never met her mother, not that she could remember, but her father told her that the words were written in her mother’s flowery handwriting. 

Her mother’s handwriting, a spirit’s words. The two beings who gave her life at the expense of their own. The two that left her with a debt she could only repay in one way. 

\-----

Yue tried to tell her father. When he introduced a hard looking boy as her future, she tried to tell him it wasn’t necessary. Tui would need her before she could fulfill any promise to this boy who looked at her with something that wasn’t exactly love.

But, father’s don’t like to think that their children are going to die. They like to imagine their children older than them with children and love and a long and happy life.

Yue wondered if the moon had given her patience as well as life. She took the boy’s hand and let him kiss hers. She kissed her father’s cheek. She promised what she could and not a bit more.

This pleased her father and the boy. This pleased the boy’s family and the rest of her village. This upset La, a jealous lover, and Yue spent more time beside the spirit pool soothing Tui and La, promising she would return to them when the time was right. 

\-----

The only time Yue resented the words inscribed on her chest and the meaning they carried was when she met a boy with blue eyes so different to her own. 

They sparkled when he joked. They boasted confidence while betraying a soft heart underneath. His eyes loved her before they even knew her and Yue hadn’t thought that was possible.

She cried by herself that night. Tui’s light caressed her face, and for the first time it wasn’t comforting, it wasn’t a promise. It was a curse.

Her heart ached as she felt herself love this boy. It hurt as she laughed for what felt like the first time. Yue let him hold her and love her, and she let herself love him, too.

This love wasn’t quite like the love soulmates described. Yue thought maybe she would never experience that. But she desperately wished it were. She wished the words on her chest were in a boy’s handwriting, not a mother’s. She wished they said _I just want to know you, I think you’re beautiful_. 

\-----

Yue could feel the moon calling to her. She could feel the spirits preparing themselves to add another to their number. She felt the promise, the curse, pressing, the debt ready to be repaid.

So, she kissed the boy. She let herself have that at least, let herself feel his lips on hers once before the moon called her home.

But she felt horrible. She had a stone on a ribbon around her throat. She had words written over her heart. And here, she had a boy who looked like all he knew was how to love her.

She felt horrible because she knew she was leaving, but he didn’t.

\-----

When the moment came for Yue to return the favour given to here all those years ago, she wasn’t scared.

For a while, as a child, Yue had been terrified. Saving Tui meant leaving her family. Now Yue, not quite an adult but no longer a child, knew that saving Tui meant saving her family, too.

Yue cupped her blue-eyed boy’s cheeks before wading into the spirit pool. The cold water shocked her and she closed her eyes. She didn’t wail as she did when she was a child. It was fitting, perhaps, that her life would end in the same way her life had begun. 

She felt her breathing grow shallow and then she met Tui. They reached forwards and embraced her. Yue at once felt peace. This was what soulmates meant by love.

Yue glanced back at the boy who had introduced her to this sort of love. He would be alright; there was a soulmate out there waiting for him who could make him feel as Tui made her feel. 

Yue knew that her boy would be alright.

But right now, he was crying. He was upset because he didn’t want to lose her.

She turned to Tui and begged them for a few more moments. She used these moments to press another kiss to this blue-eyed boy’s lips. Not enough, but it would never be enough. She said goodbye.

Then, Yue joined her soulmate in their place in the sky.

\-----

Now Yue didn’t dream. She lived in a cycle of day and night with Agni. She lived in a constant push and pull with La. She lived in unity with Tui.

There had been a hole, a piece missing, when she had lived on the earth among her people. She felt the hole fill, the piece slot into place as she watched them from the sky.

She watched her father live and die. She watched her people grow and thrive. She watched balance be restored and lost, restored and lost again. She watched a blue-eyed boy fall in love and raise a family and raise his face to her when she was at her peak.

And Yue knew peace.

**Author's Note:**

> Yue's death devastates me every time that I rewatch the series, but writing this helped me feel a bit better about it.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this and that you have a good day!


End file.
